Big wireless to FCC: be consistent—except when it benefits us

When it comes to net neutrality, wireless wants a free pass on the rules—but …

Lobbying is a fast and furious game, one where the lobbyists must make every attempt to present things that benefit their industry as if they are a triumph of dispassionate reason—even when their positions seem to contradict one another.

The wireless phone industry filed a document (PDF) Tuesday with the FCC that led us to ponder the mysteries of the lobbyists, because the document amounts to a well-written plea for identical treatment when different technology platforms accomplish the same goal. But the wireless industry only wants consistent regulation when the consistency helps it out. Apply the consistency principle consistently—especially to network neutrality—and suddenly the industry has a bazillion reasons why it's "different."

To see the process in action, let's take a look at the document. First, though, strap on your safety belts; we don't want anyone getting contradiction whiplash.

Equal justice under law

CTIA-The Wireless Association has a problem with voice over IP (VoIP) calling, which is admittedly a regulatory mess.

First, you have the traditional circuit-switched phone calls, which establish a complete circuit between two callers, and the full circuit is used even when the call is silent. Then there are packet-switched VoIP offerings that come both from wired ISPs (Comcast, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon's FiOS, and more all offer digital phone service based on VoIP technology) and increasingly from wireless operators (T-Mobile's WiFi-supported phones can allow for VoIP calls when in range of a hotspot).

But VoIP providers come in two kinds: "interconnected" and, well, not interconnected. Interconnected VoIP operators are defined by FCC rule 47cfr9.3 (PDF), which lays out the conditions:

Permits users generally to receive calls that originate on the public switched telephone network and to terminate calls to the public switched telephone network.

The definition matters because "interconnected" VoIP operators have to do many of the things that the old "common carriers" like AT&T had to do: pay universal service fund fees, abide by wiretap laws, support E911 calls, offer a special relay service for the deaf, etc. It's a lot of work, money, and hassle, so some VoIP operators have tried to avoid being classed as "interconnected."

Skype, for instance, has stayed clear of the definition, despite meeting its apparent conditions. As the US government's disability-focused Access Board noted a couple of years ago, "The FCC has determined that neither Skype, Skype In, or Skype Out meets the definition at this time."

So, even within the world of VoIP operators, there are two regulatory categories. CTIA hates this. "There are VoIP offerings that arguably are set up so as to avoid these [interconnected VoIP] FCC requirements. CTIA believes that the Commission must review the regulatory requirements of these services."

The goal? "Regulatory parity" and a "level playing field to maximally benefit consumers."

That parity also extends to the difference between circuit-switched and packet-switched calls. If the FCC adopts net neutrality rules that limit a carrier's ability to prioritize VoIP packets, CTIA says, many carriers may simply avoid switching their voice calls to a packet-switched VoIP system at all! That way, the carriers can continue doing what they want and can control the quality of the audio stream.

What's needed is parity, in order not to discourage carriers from investing in the move to all-IP networks. If going all-IP brings with it more regulation, carriers may delay. And, once the switch to VoIP has been made, there should only be one class of VoIP service, not two.

Fair enough. To boil the idea all down into a sludgy reduction, it doesn't matter what technology you use; if two systems do the same thing, they should be regulated the same way.

With, ahem, one big exception

Which is why it's interesting to remember that the wireless lobby has one unshakable principle when it comes to net neutrality: you can apply it to wired ISPs, but don't even think of including us.

This point—wireless is different—has some merit to it for various technical reasons (the number of concurrent channels on a cell tower, a bandwidth crunch for wireless operators), but it also directly contradicts the push to treat IP services the same way regardless of which entity provides them.

In fact, it's Chairman Genachowski who has been more consistent on this issue, pushing for public IP networks to follow the same net neutrality rules, regardless of how the IP link is made. The current thinking: If carriers have a data problem, let them use data capping or protocol agnostic throttling, but don't demand that a crucial set of rules apply only to wired providers of Internet service and not to wireless.

Such a setup would create a two-tiered system, more favorable to one type of network arrangement—exactly the sort of thing CTIA wants abolished when it comes to VoIP.

"CTIA believes that when it comes to net neutrality regulation the Commission should refrain from applying the rules to wireless broadband," says the group, echoing its old refrain.

To be fair, CTIA would actually like consistency in the sense that it doesn't want network neutrality rules at all. But, if the rules do come into force, bring on the double standard!

If you want a stark reminder of just how bizarre the world of lobbying can be, recall that it was literally weeks ago that AT&T's wireless arm was blocking iPhone VoIP apps on its data network. Now, CTIA claims it needs the ability to prioritize traffic in order to make sure VoIP calls—even from third-party VoIP operators—sound awesome.

You see, Voice traffic is UNIQUE, in that it is a) on a seperate protocol, eassily filtered, and B) is only limitedly sensitive to latency so long as there is also minimal packet loss, and C) is a FIXED bandwidth service (typically either 32, 64, or 128K depending on the qaulity, wether or not additional data is embedded in the call, and wether or not a low grade video signal is part of the call).

By prioritizing VOICE protocols, yet at the same time CAPPING Voice traffic to a maximum number of concurrent active channels for an IP (which would need to be flexible, especially for business connections, but likely could be limited to a max of 3 calls, acounting for limited conference calling, from a single residentail IP). This means they could easily permit QoS throttling of VoIP without interfering with other network traffic, and because the bandwidth would be protocol specific and capped at a very low max rate, it would be impossible for hackers to heavily abuse.

See, the fear is some protocols or IPs would also be prioritized, and video protocols and 3rd party services might suffer on locally owned networks that directly compete with those services. They argue the need to allow QoS to "preserve voice quality" but its such a slim protocol they could easily do this under an excepotion, and not interfere or throttle ANY other traffic on any port/protocol at all.

The FCC could easily rule that only certain protocols associatyed with VoIP could be QoSed to higher priority, and all other traffic must be treated equally. This provides a consistant communication resource while also maintaining net neutrality. Since the protoicol is bandwidth capped, downloaders can't bury signals in the protocol to gain higher packet prioritizarion for their own activity, and other 3rd party services, especially video, would also not be able to be higher or lower prioritised.

Basically, guarantee that 64K is always available for the first and 2nd active calls, but is not "reserved" by using packet prioritization. If I'm not on a call, packets from as normal. If I'm on a call those packets flow at a simple 1 level higher priority through the switches, detected by the protocol used, and essentially I get 64k less bandwidth for everything else while on the call. This also means that the minimum switching bandwidth upstream would have to be at least as big as 192K both up and down per connected user (up to 2 party call prioritized plus a trickle of 64K for data packets). Or, if the government approves the new "broadband" definitions, it would be 256K each way "guaranteed" bandwidth in order to rovide this voice quality service. I'm OK with that... I could never be throttled lower, meaning they have to upgrade their pipes, or refuse additional subscribers if they hit their upstream theoretical limts. Today I have 512K up, but I rarely get over 348, and often get below 256... That would finally change!

Net Neutrality is completely OK, even with a provision for voice packets, which solves both my request, and theirs, while maintaining a free packet market otherwise and preventing practices like user throttling, application throttling, or 3rd party practices to inhibit competition or charging for premium (priority packet) services.

Aka, please kill Skype for us. We're having a difficult time competing and it would really be better -- for consumers of course -- if Skype would just go away. All this work we have to do with the pipes we own -- so tedious! If only we didn't have this work, we would surely have made a service like Skype!

This is all positioning from Google to force wired ISPs into unreasonable expectations and leave wireless options unregulated so they can bypass competitors for roll-out of their own wireless network service.

Google is a major member of CTIA since 2006. They have serious interests in creating a nationwide MWAN, shown by Google's push into the wireless auction several years back and the white space legislation lobbying.

The current push into the wireless phone market is just the first step in a long term plan to become the leading ISP monopoly in the USA and perhaps internationally (they've led similar efforts in Europe and China).

Originally posted by MatthiasF:This is all positioning from Google to force wired ISPs into unreasonable expectations and leave wireless options unregulated so they can bypass competitors for roll-out of their own wireless network service.

Google is a major member of CTIA since 2006. They have serious interests in creating a nationwide MWAN, shown by Google's push into the wireless auction several years back and the white space legislation lobbying.

The current push into the wireless phone market is just the first step in a long term plan to become the leading ISP monopoly in the USA and perhaps internationally (they've led similar efforts in Europe and China).

Originally posted by MatthiasF:This is all positioning from Google to force wired ISPs into unreasonable expectations and leave wireless options unregulated so they can bypass competitors for roll-out of their own wireless network service.

Google is a major member of CTIA since 2006. They have serious interests in creating a nationwide MWAN, shown by Google's push into the wireless auction several years back and the white space legislation lobbying.

The current push into the wireless phone market is just the first step in a long term plan to become the leading ISP monopoly in the USA and perhaps internationally (they've led similar efforts in Europe and China).

Call me crazy, but wouldn't a nationwide MWAN be a good thing? That would solve a whole host of problems in rural areas. See? Not all lobbying is bad (although it's close enough to being all bad that I fully support abolishing the lobby).

Particularly an MWAN operated by Google! My Solstice presents are coming early this year.